Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Annan Appoints Ex-US Genl As Deputy To Kosovo Mission

PRISTINA (AP)--The U.N. has appointed a former U.S. brigadier general to be the deputy head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, the organization said Wednesday in a statement.

Steven Schook, who has retired from the U.S. Army, previously served in Kosovo as chief of staff to the commander of NATO-led peacekeepers deployed in the province, which has been administered by the U.N. since 1999, after NATO launched airstrikes to stop a crackdown by Serb forces of separatist ethnic Albanian rebels.

Schook was also the NATO commander and senior military representative in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegoniva, and served as the commander of multinational peacekeeping troops known as SFOR in that country, the U.N. said.

Talks to determine Kosovo's future status are underway, with the ethnic Albanian majority population pushing for full independence and the province's Serb minority and Serbia insisting it remains linked with Serbia. [ 19-04-06 0908GMT ]

Why do you ask idiotic questions that you and the rest of the world already know the answer to.

I'll tell you why (i biri shkinës - son of a serb whore)...the U.S. & NATO took the Albanian side because they have enough experts on Balkan history & issues to know who land really belongs to but most of all who was in the right and who was in the ABSOLUT wrong.

Does anyone honestly believe that the United States intervened in Kosovo because it was concerned with the fact that "historically" it was Albanian land. Do you honestly think the United States bombed to stop "ethnic cleansing?" Give me a break. If that were the case the U.S. should have intervened in Rwanda, Cambodia, China, Turkey, and Sudan. Let's be serious; Kosovo is in an important geo-strategin location and now houses one of the largest bases in the world...Bondsteel. Can you put it together?

The Kosovo separatists have positioned themselves as middlemen, offering up the province’s resources for exploitation by major transnationals. Kosovo has the second largest coal reserves in Europe and rich deposits of lead, zinc, gold, silver and petroleum. Ethem Ceku, Agim’s cousin and member of the AAK, is energy and mining minister.

A brochure aimed at attracting foreign investment states: “A major objective of the donor agencies and the Provisional Institutions of Self Government of Kosovo (PISG) is the development of Kosovo’s private sector economy. Accordingly, UNMIK and the PISG have adopted a set of laws to ensure an investor friendly environment including: regulations on foreign direct investment; repatriation of capital; the purchase of real estates; the registration of businesses and land; and the establishment of 99-year leaseholds for land formerly used by SOEs.”

Last November, the UN-administered Kosovo Trust Agency sold the ferro-nickel plant Ferronikeli to the UK-based Alferon, which is part of the large Eurasian Natural Resources Group. The Trepca mining complex, once described by the New York Times as one of the biggest pieces of real estate in the Balkans, valued at $5 billion, has been turned over to an international consortium, ITT Kosovo Ltd, a joint venture between US, French and Swedish companies.

Wealthy elements within the Kosovo Albanian émigré community are seeking Washington’s backing through organisations like Alliance for a New Kosovo. According to the Financial Times, one of the main figures behind this organisation, Behglet Pacolli, is “possibly the world’s richest Albanian”. The newspaper reported: “Following a well-worn campaign trail, the Kosovo Albanians have put up a large pool of money, attracted big names among former US officials, brought in a big ticket think-tank and international lobbying company and marshaled their supporters in Congress.”

Among those enlisted are Samuel Hoskinson, former deputy head of the US National Intelligence Council, and Frank Carlucci, former defence secretary and emeritus chairman of the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm close to the Bush administration. The article said: “Other former officials suggested the US might have to resort to an ‘imposed settlement’ if Serbia did not yield from its position of ‘more autonomy, less than independence’”.

Geographically, Kosovo lies at the centre of a critical pipeline route for transporting the largely untapped oil and gas resources of Central Asia to markets in the West. The traditional East-West route from the landlocked Caspian Sea has been via the Bosphurus Straits. However, this route has been increasingly unable to cope with demand. The question of “Bosphurus by-pass routes” is inextricably connected to the strategy championed by the US of building new pipelines that circumvent Russia and Iran.

The Balkan peninsula was earmarked for several pipelines but only the US-registered consortium AMBO (the acronym for the transit countries, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia) has reached the construction stage. The 900-km pipeline is expected to carry 750,000 barrels per day once completed. Oil from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan will be shipped across the Black Sea to the port of Burgas in Bulgaria, where it will be pumped across the peninsula via Skopje, Macedonia to the Mediterranean port of Vlore, Albania. The consortium’s CEO is Edward Ferguson, a former director of Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the energy and defence contractor connected to the US administration.

The AMBO project has advanced in competition with the shorter and cheaper oil pipeline project from the same starting point in Burgas, Bulgaria to the Greek port of Alexandropoulos on the Aegean Sea. The latter is associated with transporting Russian oil to Western markets and Greece’s attempt to challenge Turkey as a major East-West energy node.

AMBO’s development has proceeded hand in glove with its transit states becoming virtual NATO protectorates. Bulgaria, together with Rumania and several central European and Baltic states, was admitted into the alliance in 2004. Albania has participated in joint exercises with NATO and the latter has been involved in Macedonia.

One of the America’s largest overseas military bases since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel, was built on 1000 acres of farmland seized in the US military sector of south east Kosovo. The heavily fortified complex with bomb shelters and guard towers has an ammunition site and heliport that can accommodate up to 55 Apache helicopters. It is located near the Macedonian border on the Kacanik pass way to the country’s capital, Skopje.

The AMBO project was delayed while efforts were concentrated on completing the Anglo-American BTC (Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan) pipeline, one of the largest in the world. It carries Caspian oil from Azerbaijan through Georgia to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Since its completion last May, attention has returned to the Bosphurus by-pass route.

Its interesting how greeks and serbs suck each others cock. No wonder you agree on each others issues. Greece has committed genocide against alabanians of cameria and the once they call arvanit so no wonder they agre with serbs. Both nations have albanian blood on their hands.